Early Marriage Among Indian Women Linked to Poor Reproductive Health and Spousal Violence

A new study by researchers from the Population Council, New Delhi, and the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai, which looked at the effect of early marriage among young Indian women found a range of negative associations that compromised their overall lives and reproductive health. K.G. Santhya and colleagues used data on Indian women aged 20-24 from a large-scale survey conducted in urban and rural areas of five states where early marriage is widespread: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. They found that nearly 63% of these women had married when they were younger than 18, the minimum legal age for marriage in India.